Upon Further Reflection, Bok Tower Reinvents Self

Company Officials Have Changed The Name Of The Polk County Attraction To Historic Bok Sanctuary.

August 15, 2002|By Todd Pack, Sentinel Staff Writer

Bok Tower Gardens' carillon once called 500,000 visitors a year to a hill called Iron Mountain in Polk County. But that was before Interstate 4 and a guidebook full of amusement parks, dinner shows and outlet malls sprang up in and around Orlando.

With attendance now about 150,000 and falling, the 73-year-old attraction is trying to renew people's interest by changing its name. On Monday, it became Historic Bok Sanctuary.

Bok President Bob Sullivan said the tourist attraction, one of Florida's oldest, needed to change its marketing approach because "research has shown that fewer people really understood what we have to offer."

Rather than focusing on the property's lush gardens and bell tower, new brochures and print ads will position Bok Sanctuary as a cultural attraction -- a place to "elevate your mind and spirit."

Locally, Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando plan to open new rides next year, and SeaWorld has told Orange County that it wants to build a signature restaurant and shopping area by the lake in the center of its theme park.

On a smaller scale, Gatorland in south Orange County started offering airboat rides this spring as part of a plan to attract more environmentally minded tourists.

Gatorland, in business since 1949, began looking for ways to freshen up its product a year ago, said Michelle Harris, the park's marketing director. "The more we looked at it, the more it became important for us to do something," she said. "People who come to the area are really looking for alternatives" to the usual attractions.

Bok Sanctuary officials say they won't make any changes to the attraction itself but will try to change how people perceive it.

Sullivan said research has shown that visitors to the attraction, about 50 miles southwest of Orlando in Lake Wales, enjoy it but have trouble describing it. It has a bell tower and lush gardens, but that doesn't capture the feeling of the place, he said.

In renaming the property, officials returned in part to its original name -- Mountain Lake Sanctuary.

Dedicated in 1929, it was created by Edward W. Bok, a Dutch immigrant and publisher whose autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1921.